This is the stuff so horrifying that it can give people the creeps for years. This scares the pants off of just about anyone to the author/creator's delight. This makes you shrink in the back of your chair (or maybe even hide behind the sofa), look over your shoulder, and remind yourself that what's going on is (usually) only fictional.

For many horror films, achieving this effect is the whole point (and many in-universe examples arise because Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films). For some reason, many of us like to be scared on purpose. There may be a euphoria generated by surviving something that seems scary, or maybe we know that fiction can't hurt us (not physically, anyway) and the idea of choosing to be scared without the danger is fun. Some think it's cathartic or therapeutic in some way to explore our fears from a position of relative safety. In any case, this is normal for the genre. Others are fascinated by the very things that most people avoid. Many a time, it overlaps with Squick.

On the other hand, Nightmare Fuel doesn't exist just in the horror genre and is not always the main focus of the films and shows in which it is present. In the case of such movies and shows where Nightmare Fuel or anything related to horror is far from the norm, it can be unsettling when it does occur due to the stark contrast, especially if the genre of the film or show is far from horror, such as comedy or animation, or when in a showwith a very specific target demographic.

Experiences may vary from person to person. Some people, for example, may find the invasion of monstrosities which are treated as benign to be a far more terrifying prospect than things which we need to explicitly fear. Think the difference between the monster who lives under your bed when you're grown up versus the monster who lives under your bed and fist-bumps your parents when you were a young child.

This is an Audience Reaction, so leave it on YMMV and Nightmare Fuel tabs and don't get too worked up about what specifically goes into it — what's Nightmare Retardant for one person may well be Nightmare Fuel for another.

Some examples of things that are generally Nightmare Fuel include — but are not limited to — the following:

Creepy children singing, especially in menacingly slow horror scenes, that suggest some sort of supernatural uncontrollable evil entity being around and even worse, taking the form of innocence - a child.

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